AMD Ryzen Performance Review Leaked: Promising

[elijahk33]

gaming results are not underwhelming. Clocked at 3.15Ghz it beats a Skylake i5 clocked at 3.20-3.60Ghz. Knowing that games use on average 4 cores, that actually shows very closely matching IPC between Zen and Skylake. With the retail editions enabling Turbo, performance will likely get closer to a 4-core i7.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

Just to be clear, AMD had such a huge success with Athlon because...GAMES. If this is underwhelming...well...

No one know what you are implying here. Could you please clarify. Thank you.

 

[prtskg]

@btarunr - That's not a nicely written article. Nowhere in the article you mention its an engineering sample running @ 3.1 base frequency and 3.4 single core turbo and 3.3 all core turbo. I think that information is very important, which not only you skipped but termed this preview 'REVIEW'.

And then you compared gaming performance of this ES with 4 core chips(i5 and i7) rather than the 8 core chip (6900k) even though it was present in list. At least you should mention that only 1 game in the list of games scales beyond 4 cores!

For those who are interested in the original article, thank tpi2007 of overclock<.>net for this translation-
http://www.overclock.net/t/1619110/cpc-first-unofficial-ryzen-benchmarks/90#post_25730623

Computing performance

H.264 1080p & H.265 4K encoding, WPrime, PovRay 3.7, Blender 3D, 3DSMax 2015 / Mental Ray, Corona Benchmark

With its eight real cores, Zen achieves some prowess despite the limited 3.3 Ghz frequency. It even gets dangerously close - for Intel - to the Core i7-6900K, offering performance comparable to that of the i7-5960X at the same frequency (3.3 Ghz Tubo mode). The allegations made by AMD a few months ago seem to be true in practice and that's excellent news. Compared to the FX-8370, we noted a performance gain of around 35% at the same clocks, in line with AMD's predictions (40%).

(Note from me: concerning the last sentence, that's actually not what AMD said, they said 40% more IPC compared to Excavator. Here they are comparing it against a Piledriver CPU, which is two revisions prior. In any case, more IPC and more performance don't have to necessarily 100% match.)


Gaming Performance

Far Cry 4, GRID: Autosport, Battlefield 4, Arma III, X3: TC, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Anno 2070

If the results may seem disappointing in face of the average of the games tested, it should be kept in mind that the prototype tested is an eight core with an especially low base frequency (in particular Turbo mode). Now, games are still very sensitive to clockspeeds and have a hard time benefiting from more than 4 cores. It's thus difficult in these conditions to compare it against an i7-6700K, where the clocks surpass 4 Ghz. Notwithstanding, the Zen architecture proves itself to an effectiveness degree that we haven't seen from AMD in a long time.


Power consumption

Measured at full load (in watts)

The power consumption measurement of the Zen CPU was made with a current clamp at the ATX 12V connector at full load. While true that it's less precise than the ones we usually make with an oscilloscope, it gives a good idea of the performance of Global Foundries' 14nm LPP process. Once we remove the parts related to the motherboard's VRMs, we estimate that the CPU uses a little less than 90w, a number very close to that of a 6900K. A result that is a good indication for what comes next.



The Zen architecture should allow AMD to make a serious comeback in the CPU market, including the high-end segment that they abandoned for a long time. Intel risks a setback, which is a well deserved consequence of years of laxity and arrogance (the Core i7-6950X at 1900 euros is the perfect illustration). Do we expect a return of true competition in the CPU market? Not everything is yet won by AMD. While it does seem that the eight core CPUs are on the right track, the CPU maker must rapidly finalize the four core derivatives with noticeably higher clockspeeds than current prototypes: 3.8, looking into 4 or 4.2 Ghz seem to us the minimum to tickle the latest Kaby Lake CPUs. At last, there is still one unknown: the pricing. While certain rumours talk about a rather low price list, we doubt that AMD will sell them at sales prices now that it at last has an opportunity to recover from its years of losses. Above all, it shouldn't crap itself on the final straight...

 

[TheGuruStud]

Is this a sister site for wccftech?

At least it doesn't have the clickbait title from wccftech or the TPU forum.

 

[64K]

Is this a sister site for wccftech?

At least it doesn't have the clickbait title from wccftech or the TPU forum.

WCCFTech is the modern equivalent of The National Enquirer Rag

because enquiring minds want to know

 

[phanbuey]

it looks like the clock / performance is back in the competitive arena, but not going to be an upgrade for those who already have an intel at 4.6-5.0 ghz.

Once the memory subsystem and clocks are tweaked a bit we may see that number improve.

 

[R0H1T]

it looks like the clock / performance is back in the competitive arena, but not going to be an upgrade for those who already have an intel at 4.6-5.0 ghz.

Once the memory subsystem and clocks are tweaked a bit we may see that number improve.

Well then enjoy your Skylake @4.6 GHz

By the looks of it most people in this thread want a 5GHz eight core (air cooled?) Zen for the price of a 6700k

The SR7 quite clearly targets the ~5960x owners (who need/want eight cores) & if it can land within striking distance of 6900k & be priced appropriately, it should sell pretty well.
On the other hand there'd be users out there who'll just wait for Intel to lower their prices to (reasonable?) levels, they'll still go for the more expensive 6900k or 6950x just because they can.

 

[mastrdrver]

On a clock for clock basis, it looks like AMD is on the same ground as Intel, even in gaming.

Unless everyone here is claiming that an i7 6700k has a higher ipc than a i7 6900k in games?

 

[Chaitanya]

On a clock for clock basis, it looks like AMD is on the same ground as Intel, even in gaming.

Unless everyone here is claiming that an i7 6700k has a higher ipc than a i7 6900k in games?

i7-6700k doesnt have higher ipc than i7-6900k but rather how badly games are coded makes that quad core chip faster in gaming scenario. If you look at any Cpu reviews you will notice this trend most games still tend to be single threaded and cannot benifit from more than 4 cores. Infact from purely gaming perspective having a higher clocked lower core count cpu(4 core cpus are a sweet spot) makes more sense than having a lower clocked higher core count cpu.

 

[Jism]

AMD could play with Turbo and make 4 cores run leaps around that Intel's one.

Problem in these benches is games dont need 8 cores / 16 threads. Games need 4 fast cores.

 

[Yukikaze]

The one thing I have to say about these leaks and benches: Just wait for the release and normal, widespread benchmarks. Until then, this just fuels discussions in circles, which devolves into fanboy (and troll) name calling by around page 5 or so.

 

[kruk]

Here, the Ryzen sample was found to be underwhelming - it was slower than the Core i5-6600 quad-core chip clocked at 3.30-3.90 GHz; but faster than the i5-6500, clocked at 3.20-3.60 GHz. The fastest chip in the table is the i7-6700K (4.00-4.20 GHz).

If Ryzen sample is underwhelming, then Intels 6900k is also underwhelming. At least try to be objective ...

 

[InVasMani]

Gaming underwhelming?..........oh dear.

Relax we don't know about it's overclocking potential or what it's final clock speeds are going to be set at yet and that was a comparison at equivalent clock speeds. Most games benefit most from single thread performance is the gist of it which is exactly what that showed and he was alluding towards.

However it did indicate I believe at the same time multi threading seems to help marginally despite that aspect on modern games or it likely would have fared far worse. It's really no different than Intel 6 core CPU's vs Skylake hell even a 2C i3 clocked high can be better than a 4c Skylake i5 for gaming purposes it depends on the games multi threading and hardware in use as well to a point.

His conclusion was on point the price is the main factor for AMD everything else is less important they might be better or worse in some regards, but it's entirely how they price it in relation to Intel's offerings.

AMD could play with Turbo and make 4 cores run leaps around that Intel's one.

Problem in these benches is games dont need 8 cores / 16 threads. Games need 4 fast cores.

Exactly in most use cases this is more realistic and accurate hell games would actually prefer 1 fast single core ideally, but we can only easily scale a single core so high before efficiency completely goes out the window and it makes more sense to branch out a bit however only beyond a certain threshold does that make much sense for applications like most games demand where fast single thread performance is paramount to multi thread capability. You have to think of multi threading like a high horse power car it's great, but you still need traction or it's mostly wasted.

Just to be clear, AMD had such a huge success with Athlon because...GAMES. If this is underwhelming...well...

It's not even underwhelming it's just the case scenario is a poor comparison. Plus you can make the case and argue games are more demanding than ever or inversely. Put it this way sure bleeding edge is always demanding, but all of those games that aren't still on the side of bleeding edge are less demanding and more accessible than ever before.

It's really only in a very narrow sense that this CPU might fall short a bit for gaming, but overall it wins. It probably also shouldn't bottleneck the GPU as easily at the same clock speeds either meaning it can probably pair with a higher performance GPU at equivalent clock speeds. Bottom line we need more testing and have to know pricing to get the full picture in order to decide purchasing decisions.

 

[ssdpro]

Gaming underwhelming?..........oh dear.

That is what drew my eyes. The vast consumer market for desktop pcs is still gamers. Why is a 1.5 year old 6700K outperforming by an average of 30%? I know the fans will shout it isn't overclocked, but neither is the 6700k. While previous leaks I have found encouraging, this one falls into "hope it is less than accurate" bucket.

 

[Atnevon]

Man the AMD teasefest is in prime season! Ughhhh!

 

[Xzibit]

That is what drew my eyes. The vast consumer market for desktop pcs is still gamers. Why is a 1.5 year old 6700K outperforming by an average of 30%? I know the fans will shout it isn't overclocked, but neither is the 6700k. While previous leaks I have found encouraging, this one falls into "hope it is less than accurate" bucket.

So you think the vast consumer market will op for a 8c/16t. Only if its within they're budget. Judging from people around here most of which are on 4c/4t or 4c/8t very few are even on 6c/12t gaming let alone 8c/16t.

The majority of those people "gamers" are using Intels between 2.3 Ghz to 2.69 Gh, half are on 2cores and the other are on 4cores.

Overclock3D.NET did a nice break down
OC3D.NET - AMD Ryzen CPU benchmarks emerge

While these results are from an AMD Ryzen CPU, they are from an Engineering sample that has lower clock speeds than AMD's retail versions, with this CPU featuring a base clock speed of 3.15GHz, a boost/turbo clock speed of 3.3GHz on all cores and a maximum turbo boost of 3.5GHz on a single CPU core.

AMD has already stated that their Ryzen CPUs will feature a base clock speed of 3.4+GHz, which means that AMD's retail CPUs will offer higher performance than is shown in these benchmarks below. With a base clock speed of at least 3.4GHz AMD's Ryzen retail CPUs will have around 8% boost in performance, assuming that boost/turbo clock speeds see similar increases.

It is also worth noting that these results were likely recorded before AMD's Ryzen event on pre-release hardware, so AMD's retail samples should feature improved performance or increased power efficiency.

We can see in these CPU-based benchmarks that AMD's Ryzen CPU offers a significant performance boost over their older Piledriver FX 8370, offering over a 50% performance boost despite having a huge reduction in clock speeds.

We can see that AMD's Ryzen CPU has performance that exceeds Intel's i7 6800K and offers performance that is almost as high as Intel's i7 6900K. This is some hugely impressive performance from AMD, offering performance that is close to Intel's $1000 6900K with a CPU that is known to have lower clocks than final retail samples.

We can see here that AMD's Ryzen CPU does not perform as well here as can be seen in CPU-only loads, though this can be explained by this sample's lower clock speeds. We can see that AMD's Ryzen CPU offers similar gaming performance to Intel's 6600/6600K and offers some significant performance gains over AMD's older FX 8370.

With an 8+% boost in clock speeds being expected in final/Retail Ryzen CPUs we can expect gaming performance that is similar to Intel's i7 6800K or 6900K, which is hugely impressive for AMD

These results are not from a retail Zen CPU, which is expected to feature higher core clock speeds, so hopefully we can expect even better from AMD's Zen architecture in the future.

 

[roberto888]

That is what drew my eyes. The vast consumer market for desktop pcs is still gamers. Why is a 1.5 year old 6700K outperforming by an average of 30%? I know the fans will shout it isn't overclocked, but neither is the 6700k. While previous leaks I have found encouraging, this one falls into "hope it is less than accurate" bucket.

Why? Cause it has near 30% higher clock speeds. I hope you figure the rest out. And let's not forget that the 6700K has 4C/8T 91W TDP, while the Ryzen has 93W TDP with 8C/16T.

 

[ssdpro]

Why? Cause it has near 30% higher clock speeds.

Exactly, the 6700K has higher clock speeds. No need to get emotional about the speculation, I am definitely in the camp (see previous posts) of wanting this Ryzen thing to be a hit. I hope the leaks of this article are incorrect - I know I can't switch to a 8c16t processor if the gaming performance is 30% lower than a 6700K. I agree the product will likely overclock to comparable performance but we don't want that. This product needs to exceed the mainstream Intel offerings in gaming performance not just equal or be 30% less. Intel needs a whack with a baseball bat not a spit from 20 feet.

 

[InVasMani]

So you think the vast consumer market will op for a 8c/16t. Only if its within they're budget. Judging from people around here most of which are on 4c/4t or 4c/8t very few are even on 6c/12t gaming let alone 8c/16t.

The majority of those people "gamers" are using Intels between 2.3 Ghz to 2.69 Gh, half are on 2cores and the other are on 4cores.

Overclock3D.NET did a nice break down
OC3D.NET - AMD Ryzen CPU benchmarks emerge

2C/4T i3 Skylake here and from where I'm standing #Ryzen looks like a winner potentially, but I would like to know more what it's final clock speeds and price ends up being, but clock for clock it looks competitive or competitive enough for me for gaming while at the same time being far more competitive for general purpose computing across a variety of work loads rather than single thread dependent ones. It might fall short in single thread dependent games and emulation, but well threaded ones it should excel at in fact I want to see specifically how it does with DX12 compared to Intel both with and without AMD GPU's since those tend to be quite favorable as well for DX12 over Nvidia. If AMD is very strong at DX12 it's hard to call it inferior quite frankly even if adoption of it is a bit more around corner it's already on it's way now and will just become more common moving forward the way DX10 and DX11 did as well. The way I see it if AMD can OC and be good enough for current DX9/DX10/DX11 games while being the clear superior choice for DX12 CPU to begin with it's a easy winner in my eyes that's long term value and like the stock market I invest for the long term not short term.

Exactly, the 6700K has higher clock speeds. No need to get emotional about the speculation, I am definitely in the camp (see previous posts) of wanting this Ryzen thing to be a hit. I hope the leaks of this article are incorrect - I know I can't switch to a 8c16t processor if the gaming performance is 30% lower than a 6700K. I agree the product will likely overclock to comparable performance but we don't want that. This product needs to exceed the mainstream Intel offerings in gaming performance not just equal or be 30% less. Intel needs a whack with a baseball bat not a spit from 20 feet.

Now what would you say if it did better at real time ray-traced gaming? If it's better at Blender it should likely be better at that as well in reality, but probably lower poly ray-tracing for the time being still it's progress in that segment of gaming car games perhaps?

Price to performance value is what matters AMD isn't trying so much to sell or win over the majority of 6700K users if it gets a few great what it wants is the people on the fence with something more like a i3 or i5 to get Ryzen instead of a i7 which it certainly could. I looks more tempting to me and I'm into gaming, but I also like to do more than strictly gaming with a PC and it looks very multipurpose advantageous and forward reaching future thinking design wise taking into account DX12 and higher multi threading programs going forward.

 

[Melvis]

Copy paste time!

21% slower gaming performance at 23~27% slower clocks than i7 6700K sounds great, good IPC

 

[InVasMani]

Copy paste time!

21% slower gaming performance at 23~27% slower clocks than i7 6700K sounds great, good IPC

That's kinda of how I saw it also wait and see how it scales with OC and retail clock speeds I mean hell if it matches a 6700K in performance and price hard to really complain it's a nice option at least it can legitmately trade blows they haven't done that convincingly since C2D or prior basically since TDP was completely out of site. That TDP doesn't hurt a bit a little lower PSU requirements is a good perk to have as a selling point for building on a budget.

Also wasn't AMD initially not really even targeting to compete up against Intel's Skylake? So if they are now competing against their best Skylake chip they've more than done well in meeting and surpassing expectations. Another words great job Jim Keller!

 

[Prima.Vera]

I think everybody is expecting Athlon XP vs Pentium 3 performances again. Guess what? That will not happen ever again. The Intel's RND's budget alone can buy AMD as a whole company, relax.

 

[ViperXTR]

hope its a good replacement for my 3570K, this CPU is still good for now, but im thinking of getting them 4C/8T if the performance is very good for the price, and not just performance but also wanted to get new tech on my new system like more sata 6 ports, m.2 slot, more USB3/3.1 etc

 

[R-T-B]

Well then enjoy your Skylake @4.6 GHz

By the looks of it most people in this thread want a 5GHz eight core (air cooled?) Zen for the price of a 6700k

The SR7 quite clearly targets the ~5960x owners (who need/want eight cores) & if it can land within striking distance of 6900k & be priced appropriately, it should sell pretty well.
On the other hand there'd be users out there who'll just wait for Intel to lower their prices to (reasonable?) levels, they'll still go for the more expensive 6900k or 6950x just because they can.

You can't seriously believe any modern complex core like this will have a 8-core clock to 5Ghz on air without extreme, extreme luck or binning (ie, lotsa dollars).

 

[Xzibit]

You can't seriously believe any modern complex core like this will have a 8-core clock to 5Ghz on air without extreme, extreme luck or binning (ie, lotsa dollars).

I think it was a jest, for those who think the RyZen 8c/16t is targeted at the same segment the 6700k is.